AI Watch

Blurb:

A chilling new “suicide pod” has been unveiled that seeks to streamline the euthanasia process by gassing two people to death at once, all while being powered by artificial intelligence (AI) automation to eliminate human safeguards.

The disturbing new AI-powered “suicide pod” is being pushed forward by a radical euthanasia activist, accelerating what critics warn is a globalist effort to normalize mechanized death under the guise of “choice.”

The new device is known as the “Double Dutch Sarco.”

Blurb:

Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari couched a chilling prediction within a warning at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will soon control not only most of the world’s legal, education, and healthcare systems, “AI will take over religion.” 

“This is particularly true of religions based on books, like Islam, Christianity, and Judaism,” the homosexual atheist claimed.  

“Anything made of words will be taken over by AI,” said Harari, so, “What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?”

Blurb:

Humans are using more water than Earth can support, with many water sources already damaged beyond repair, a report from the United Nations found

Humans use more water than the planet can support, entering an era of “global water bankruptcy,” a new report from the United Nations warns. Almost 75 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries that are experiencing significant water insecurity, according to the report.

Rivers, lakes, wetlands and other water sources are already “damaged beyond realistic prospects of full recovery,” the report states.

The report compares the situation to a bank account going into the red: humans are using more water than our planet can produce and using more water that is stored in sources such as glaciers, wetlands and aquifers.

Blurb:

More and more people have been experiencing psychosis induced by AI chatbot use. This is concerning since chatbot use is so prevalent, especially among young people and those who are in distress and vulnerable (one recent study found that about a quarter of young adults used chatbots specifically for mental health advice).

Reassuringly, psychiatry’s stance is that anyone who experiences this was already “prone to psychosis”—that the chatbot simply triggered delusions that would have been triggered some other way. Yet there is no evidence to support this explanation, and the case reports of those who have experienced AI psychosis tell a different story.

Blurb:

One of the biggest problems — of many — that President Donald Trump identified under his predecessor’s regime involved the soaring cost of living to which many Americans were subjected.

By that same token, Trump also appears cognizant that one of the initiatives he supports, the investment in and proliferation of artificial intelligence, could very well lead to Americans feeling the same sort of squeeze they felt under former President Joe Biden.

Aware of that, the president took to Truth Social to issue a mandate to tech companies, saying they will not be allowed to jack up American utility bills.

Blurb:

A Utah police department’s experiment with artificial intelligence took an unexpected turn after a software-generated report claimed an officer had transformed into a frog.

The incident occurred earlier this month in Heber City, where police have been testing AI tools designed to write reports based on body camera footage.

According to a KTSU report, the bizarre claim was not the result of science fiction or misconduct, but a simple background error.

“The body cam software and the AI report writing software picked up on the movie that was playing in the background, which happened to be ‘The Princess and the Frog,’” Sgt. Rick Keel told KTSU.

“That’s when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports,” Keel added.

Blurb:

Artificial intelligence is easily the most deceptive technological innovation of the 21st century. Its ease of use and the lightning-fast reflexes with which it spits out responses belie its enormous appetite for water and energy.ChatGPT took the world by storm when it launched in late 2023, signalling an era of intelligence demand marked by seamless, conversational interactions between user and machine But behind every smooth exchange lies a complex physical process. Modern AI is built on vast neural networks trained on trillions of words, images, and numbers. This training, to help models learn to predict the next word or recognise a pattern, involves processing colossal datasets repeatedly through graphics processing units, or GPUs. These chips, originally designed for rendering video game graphics, have become AI workhorses because they can perform thousands of mathematical operations simultaneously. But this speed comes at a price: intense heat.

Blurb:

The salaries for those working on the project range from $150,000 to $200,000 annually.

The Trump administration launched what is being called the “US Tech Force” as the president is seeking US dominance in the artificial intelligence industry. The new initiative will be comprised of around 1,000 engineers as well as others who will build out AI infrastructure and projects within the federal government.

The two-year employment program will work with teams that report to agency leaders in “collaboration with leading technology companies,” according to the launch website. “Upon completing the program, engineers can seek employment with the partnering private-sector companies for potential full-time roles – demonstrating the value of combining civil service with technical expertise,” the website adds.

Blurb:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted an AI-generated video depicting President Donald Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller in handcuffs.

“It’s CUFFING Season,” reads the text that appears at the beginning of the video.

It shows Trump, Hegseth, and Miller sitting on a sidewalk with their hands behind their backs.

In the next scene, they are sitting in the back of a car with handcuffs on, and they raise their hands to their faces and begin to cry.

Finally, they are shown walking in front of a courthouse, still handcuffed.

Blurb:

Key Takeaways

  • Rapid enrollment in AI programs at universities like MIT and USF reflects a surge in employer demand, with MIT’s AI major growing from 37 to 328 students in just three years.
  • Experts stress the importance of teaching the foundational aspects of AI, not just generative AI, to prepare students for a workforce increasingly reliant on AI skills.
  • Concerns about AI’s societal impact are rising, prompting calls for curricula that address the ethical and safety challenges of AI technologies.

Students are rapidly enrolling in newly created AI programs and majors at schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California San Diego, and University of South Florida.

Educators and experts told The College Fix that the boom in the field of generative AI brings both benefits and risks.

Blurb:

Artificial intelligence is putting the creative professions through a round of creative destruction. Generative tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Sora have handed millions of amateurs the means to produce competent art, prose and even studio-quality video at or next to nothing. Disney’s just-announced $1 billion investment in OpenAI, and its plan to let Sora users conjure up scenes featuring more than 200 Disney, Marvel and Star Wars characters, will push the trend further. A teenager with a smartphone may soon generate a convincing Pixar-style short without ever lifting a pencil.

But the same tools are unsettling the people who built careers around those once-scarce skills. If anyone can summon photorealistic imagery or Hollywood-grade effects on command, what happens to illustrators, designers, or voice actors who spent decades perfecting craft?

Blurb:

Nvidia shares fell on Tuesday after The Information reported that Meta is considering using chips designed by Google.

Shares of Nvidia were 3.6% lower in premarket trade. Google-parent Alphabet was trading 2.6% higher.

On Monday, The Information reported that Meta is considering using Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) in its data centers in 2027. Meta may also rent TPUs from Google’s cloud unit next year, the publication reported.

Google launched its first-generation TPU in 2018 and it was initially designed for its own internal use for its cloud computing business. Since then, Google has launched more advanced versions of its chip that are designed to handle artificial intelligence workloads.

Blurb:

“AI-powered digital twins mark a major evolution in the future of manufacturing, enabling real-time visualization of the entire production line, not just individual machines,” says Indranil Sircar, global chief technology officer for the manufacturing and mobility industry at Microsoft. “This is allowing manufacturers to move beyond isolated monitoring toward much wider insights.”

A digital twin of a bottling line, for example, can integrate one-dimensional shop-floor telemetry, two-dimensional enterprise data, and three-dimensional immersive modeling into a single operational view of the entire production line to improve efficiency and reduce costly downtime. Many high-speed industries face downtime rates as high as 40%, estimates Jon Sobel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Sight Machine, an industrial AI company that partners with Microsoft and NVIDIA to transform complex data into actionable insights. By tracking micro-stops and quality metrics via digital twins, companies can target improvements and adjustments with greater precision, saving millions in once-lost productivity without disrupting ongoing operations.

Blurb:

Each chapter in the paper offers case studies: a mathematician or a physicist stuck in a quandary, a doctor trying to confirm a lab result. They all ask GPT-5 for help. Sometimes the LLM gets things wrong. Sometimes it finds a faster route to an already known result. But other times, with careful human guidance, it helps push the boundaries of what was previously known.

In one experiment involving how waves behave around black holes, GPT-5 worked through the math to independently produce results that had previously been shown to be correct, showing it was capable of doing this level of scientific calculation. In another project involving nuclear fusion, GPT-5 developed a model that accelerated the research.

Blurb:

While much of the history of life on Earth is written, the opening chapters are murky at best. On our ever-changing world, the older a rock is, the more it has changed, obscuring or even erasing evidence of ancient life. Beyond a hazy boundary of circa two billion years, in fact, this interference is so total that no pristine, unaltered Earth rocks are known to exist, making any potential sign of biology as clear as mud.

At least until now. In a study published on November 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of researchers say they’ve leveraged artificial intelligence to follow life’s trail further back in time than ever before, using machine learning to distinguish the echoes of biology from mere abiotic organic molecules in rocks as old as 3.3 billion years.

The results could more than double how far back in time scientists can convincingly claim to discern molecular signs of life in ancient rocks, the study authors say, citing previous record-setting measurements involving 1.6-billion-year-old rocks.

Blurb:

The term “smart city” fails to fully capture the integrated data system that is the Pudong New Area of Shanghai.  Chinese authorities call it the “city brain,” a centrally controlled A.I. center that surveils and manages the city and its inhabitants.  It offers a disturbing preview of future urban governance, built on a previously unimaginable level of monitoring and control.  Since 2017, this system has linked hundreds of government databases to tens of thousands of sensors, effectively turning an entire urban district into a single, real-time data object.

Officials defend the surveillance for its tangible rewards: cleaner neighborhoods, faster emergency response, smoother traffic, and better protection for isolated seniors.  Those benefits help explain why many citizens accept the system.  But the costs are equally real.  It normalizes penetrating, constant visibility, the steady expansion of behavior-based penalties, and an infrastructure that is also used for political and social control.

Blurb:

At the 2024 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), one competitor did so well that it would have been awarded the Silver Prize, except for one thing: it was an AI system. This was the first time AI had achieved a medal-level performance in the competition’s history. In a paper published in the journal Nature, researchers detail the technology behind this remarkable achievement.

The AI is AlphaProof, a sophisticated program developed by Google DeepMind that learns to solve complex mathematical problems. The achievement at the IMO was impressive enough, but what really makes AlphaProof special is its ability to find and correct errors. While large language models (LLMs) can solve math problems, they often can’t guarantee the accuracy of their solutions. There may be hidden flaws in their reasoning.

Blurb:

The US Department of Commerce has launched what could become one of the most significant initiatives in the Administration’s AI Action Plan: the American AI Exports Program. This new effort positions the Department of Commerce as an active partner in expanding the global reach of American AI technologies: hardware, software, and models. This initiative marks a shift from regulating AI development domestically to fostering trusted AI ecosystems worldwide. At its core, this effort uses US economic and diplomatic strengths to shape the global AI marketplace before others do.

Over the past few years, Washington’s AI policy debate has focused on risk management: how to prevent bias, combat misinformation, and ensure safety in critical systems. These concerns are crucial, but they shouldn’t be the sole focus when discussing emerging technology. The AI Exports Program demonstrates a deliberate expansion of the federal government’s tools, with the Department of Commerce acting as both a regulator and promoter of growth.

Blurb:

Artificial intelligence is accelerating the scale and potency of the malicious activity in your email inbox. These threats no longer obvious; instead, they take the shape of professional and sophisticated messages tailored to your interests and current correspondence. But with the cybersecurity landscape quickly shifting due to AI-powered illicit activity, how can we ensure a secure inbox? And what would that practically look like?

Shane Tews spent some time discussing this and more with Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo, co-founders of AegisAI. Cy and Ryan have spent a combined 12+ years at the forefront of cybersecurity, working to help reimagine and practically apply security on a personal level.